Wednesday, March 2, 2011

Are you wondering what to do about the new Facebook page changes, did you know that new ones happened?Let’s take a closer look at these changes and what they mean for your business page.

Or you can view our YouTube channel to view these changes.Facebook Page Changes.Part 1Part 2

#1: Many functions are changed, one big improvement is providing one-click access to several admin tasks, rather than having to go through the “Edit page” link. Managing page admins is now accessible via clicking “See all” in the admins area in the right column. Admins can easily change their page’s category by clicking the “Edit info” link under the page name, then selecting the category from the pull-down menu in the edit screen. This is also available by clicking the new “Edit page” button, as shown above.

-The Fan Count section in the left navigation has been simplified, with the fan pics eliminated and replaced by a simple count. (Only Admins can see "who" likes the page. Vistors can no longer click or see the fans.-Clicking “people like this” brings up the familiar popup dialog where admins can remove or ban fans or make them admins.-The “Information” box has been removed entirely, and there’s no longer a place where a brief description of the page can be presented when it loads.-Visitors will have to click the “Info” link in the new left-column navigation to access more information about the page.-View Insights and Suggest to Friends have both been removed from the left column to the right column, just below the Admins area.-The “ friends like this” section has been moved from the left column to the right column, with smaller thumbnail images but a count of how many of the owner’s friends like the page, as well as some other pages that have liked your page.-The “Links” section at the bottom of the left column, with a selection of recent links posted to your wall, is gone.

#2:The New Masthead—Expanded Opportunity for CreativityThe new masthead for pages, like the redesigned personal profiles, now features the five most recently added images (Facebook calls this the “Photostrip”) which, when clicked, expand to full size in “light box” fashion, keeping users on your page instead of taking them to the photos page.

Although the addition of the Photostrip adds more space for visual branding, admins will be disappointed to learn that, unlike on personal profiles, the order of these images can’t be fixed, a feature that spawned some nice creativity on personal profiles. On pages, these Photostrip images are reordered each time the page loads, and this can’t be changed.Brands are, however, already accepting this randomness and rolling with it, coming up with creative combinations of the profile pic (now reduced from 200 x 600 px to 180 x 540 px) and the image strip, either actively embracing the randomness or incorporating images that aren’t dependent ontheir order.

#3:Bye-Bye Tabs—Now What Do We Call Them?This is one new feature many admins will view as a downgrade, and with good reason. The ability of brands to present clear tabbed options at the top of the page, in line with how websites present navigation, has been replaced with a less prominent listing of page sections in the left column, just below the profile pic.

#4:Use Facebook as Your Page or Personal Profile!This is definitely the most “revolutionary” new feature of the update. Previously, page admins could only comment as page admins on their own pages. Now, page admins can move around Facebook as their page, commenting on other pages’ walls (but not on personal profiles), and liking other pages.Facebook has made toggling between your identity as a page or as a person easy. You can do it from the “Account” link at the top right (Account—Use Facebook as Page) where you can select which page you’d like to use.

Or, if you want to use Facebook as the page you’re currently on, there’s a shortcut in the right column. Click “Use Facebook as [your page name]“; that link then becomes “Use Facebook as [your name]” so you can easily switch back.

#5: Featured Liked Pages—A Great Opportunity for Promotion and PartnershipAs Facebook says, “These pages are shown on the left of your page. Up to five pages are shown at a time, and you can specify which of your liked pages always rotate there by selecting them as featured.”

If “Wall” (the default) is selected, you can view posts either by “Everyone” or just by the page.

“Admin View” is a new feature and a convenient way for admins to manage wall content. Select “Recent” to see all—not filtered by Facebook—non-page posts in reverse chronological order. Select “Hidden Posts” (posts by users you’ve hidden or posts filtered by EdgeRank). Admins can unhide hidden posts as well as perform familiar functions such as banning a user or reporting spam.

Tip: Users now have more control over what appears in their news feed. They can filter their feed to show “Friends and pages you interact with most” or “All of your friends and pages.” The default setting is the former, and given that default settings usually go unchanged, brands may more frequently be filtered from news feeds when users don’t interact with their posts in their news feed when the user may actually still want to keep up with the brand’s news.

#7:Email Notifications for Page Activity-- A MUST for any AdminAdmins can opt to receive an email alert whenever a comment is made on one of their pages, sent to the email address they use for their account. (Edit page—Your settings)

Click “View all email settings for your pages” to be redirected to the “Pages” section of the Notifications screen.

#8:Static FBML App Is Out; iFrame Applications Only—Sort of…Another big one here. Facebook’s Static FBML application brought the ability to create custom tabs utilizing HTML, CSS, FBML and JavaScript (actually FBJS, Facebook’s flavor of JS), to the masses. Many thousands of users, from individuals to the largest brands, have used Static FBML tabs to promote their brands and incorporate the viral elements of Facebook via FBML tags.

However, as Facebook announced in August 2010, the roadmap was to eventually phase out FBML and migrate to iFrames, and they’ve now announced that after March 11, 2011, admins will no longer be able to add the Static FBML application to their pages.

Where admins with little coding experience could utilize widely available templates and tutorials to create their custom tabs with Static FBML, creating an iFrame canvas application entails a deeper understanding of web technologies, requiring that you understand how to work with iFrames and HTML, create a Facebook application, upload files to a server, and utilize XFBML (FBML that can be used on websites) and the PHP scripting language to integrate with Facebook. The age of the amateur coder on Facebook may be coming to a close.

The good news for Static FBML fans is that Facebook will continue to support existing installs of the application and the custom tabs, as well as continue to allow admins to add and edit their custom tabs. However, they do urge people to migrate their custom tabs to iFrames sooner rather than later, as they are deprecating FBML (in other words, gradually eliminating it).

It could be many months or even years before Facebook terminates FBML altogether. No one knows and Facebook isn’t saying.

But Facebook has added support for iFrames to page tabs (previously, aside from some hacked methods, iFrames wouldn’t load on page tabs), and developers are relishing the increased flexibility in developing their applications (iFramed pages are hosted external to Facebook and thus can use standard web coding and scripting) rather than dealing with the quirks of FBML and FBJS.